


Empathy

by Joet



Category: Amar a Muerte (TV), Juliantina-Fandom
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 18:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19447351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joet/pseuds/Joet
Summary: Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places. ~J.K. Rowling





	Empathy

**Author's Note:**

> This reads like my school essay, but one has to start somewhere, right? I look forward to getting better with your advice and encouragement.

Juliana Valdes was no stranger to poverty and exclusion. She was not afforded much growing up, and life in a trailer was a matter of survival than living. Daily she survived the consequences of her parents’ mistakes. If it wasn’t her father trying to deal with his demons with too much drinking and arguing with her mother, it was his business associates hounding her. With no escape in the form of friends, given her father’s reputation, she existed almost in a universe of her own. A lone soul swayed through the drudgery of life by dawn and dusk.

Walking on the streets of Mexico City, she wondered if the new location held any promise to a different life. She was accustomed to life on the move, a seeming constant when your father is a hitman. Unlike other times, this move was unprecedented. Following the disappearance of her father, her mother had decided to search for him. So, they had left the too familiar San Antonio, Texas for the streets of Mexico. It still bothered Juliana why her mother cared so much for a man that hurt her and had brought nothing but misery to their existence! Her worries notwithstanding, she held on to her mother’s hopes of finding a job as they continued their search.

Roaming the streets in their pursuit, their path crossed with another young girl and a boy. The boy was arguing with the young girl, who looked sad and clearly upset. Standing at opposite ends of the road, Juliana stole another glance at the young couple. Probably drawn to the girl’s classy assemble as she had always had a love for fashion. A passion cultivated looking at too many free magazines on her makeshift couch bed in the trailer.

Juliana wondered through the park. She hoped her mother could have some luck at finding a job today. She was hungry and her t-shirt felt sticky on her skin under the scorching sun. As she walked past one of the park benches, she recognised the young girl seated on it immediately. The girl that was earlier arguing with the boy, was crying on the bench. She halted in her steps. 

‘Are you okay? ‘she asked, looking at the lone figure on the bench. 

The other girl did not reply. She instead proceeded to withdrawal an alcohol flask from her bag and drink from it. Juliana recoiled, flashes of her drunk father taking over her mind and her body freezing in response.

'Breathe in, breathe out', she quietly repeated to herself. A mechanism she had adapted growing up in a turbulent home. When she calmed down, she turned to the girl and asked again.

'Are you okay?'

Met again with silence, she forced herself to walk away. She had known being ignored all her life. ‘Why to expect any different from a stranger in a new city?’, she rebuked. The anger directed to herself.

"I’m okay, thank you" she heard the girl reply to her back. Juliana halted again, turned back and sat near the girl on the bench. The silence fell between them. Juliana didn’t know what to say. Nothing in her life had prepared her for such moments. Her earlier courage to ask having been driven by default human empathy. Sensing the other girl will not help her out, she forced herself to speak.

"You have nice clothes", she complimented.

"Thank you", the stranger replied and turned to focus on Juliana. Under the other girl’s gaze, Juliana became self-aware. ‘I don’t have money to buy nice clothes’, she supplied.

"Money is not everything. And you look great", the other girl countered.

_Unknown to Juliana, the other girl had been born into a wealthy family. Her father, Leon Carvajal was Mexico’s media mogul. He had just recently been murdered at his own wedding. This was the source of the girl’s sadness. In addition, the girl had lived with the sorrow of her mother’s death from a tender age. Since her mother’s death, she had also grown accustomed to loneliness. Always surrounded by family and servants, yet never acknowledged. Her father had turned to his work to deal with his wife’s passing, dragging his eldest daughter, Eva Carvajal along with him. The brother had also joined the family business, leaving the young heiress to navigate life as she pleased. She had quickly joined the wrong crowd at university. They were loud, obnoxious, entitled and ever partying. In their company, she found solace in pills and alcohol. The latter had become an addiction, keeping a flask of mezcal on her at all times. Her friends always were more interested in bar hopping than offering any comfort. And when she lost the zeal to party, failing to keep up with there ‘always in the zone mood’, they said she had become boring and being around her was depressing. Despite living at opposite ends of society’s spectrum, the lives of the two girls on the bench had similarities that were invisible at a glance._

  
"So, give me everything you have", Juliana threatened, moving closer to the girl. The girl immediately froze, looking at the other with red-coloured eyes and a wrinkled brow. Juliana sensing the girl’s fear apologised immediately, reassuring her that it was a joke. The stranger, let out the breath she had been holding and dropped her head on Juliana’s shoulder.

"I was joking. But you should have seen your face", Juliana laughed, in a playful tone. She was relieved when the other girl laughed too, removing her head from her shoulder.

"Valentina", she said, extending her hand to Juliana

"Juliana, nice to meet you", she replied, shaking the extended hand.


End file.
